


Without You

by teshumai



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Space AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-10 19:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10445316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teshumai/pseuds/teshumai
Summary: Willie done this too many times not to know how it goes. Step one: promise to keep in touch. Step two: write or call or message the first week, maybe the first two weeks. Step three: get busy. Step four: stop talking. It’s always the same. It sucks to add David to the list of best friends who floated away.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vidriana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vidriana/gifts).



It’s never quite easy to explain growing up on the Warships to people. It’s why Willie likes hanging out with Kasperi - he grew up in the same way. He gets it, how the air on planets tastes dirty no matter how fresh it supposedly is. They’re used to the recycled of air of space stations, scrubbed clean and manufactured to the perfect ratios. And real gravity pulls on you differently than the artificial kind. And the way home isn’t a fixed place, or fixed group of people. It’s something you learn to carry with you. Most planet born think of home as something solid, made of brick and stone, something that, once built, will never falter, never change. Somewhere you can always come back to. For Willie home is built in blankets draped over the back of furniture, small forts for him and his siblings to claim as their own. It can be torn down and packed up at a moment’s notice and easily rebuilt somewhere entirely different. 

To be fair, he can’t quite grasp David’s life either. He doesn’t understand what it means to miss something like David misses home. He can’t imagine what it’s like to leave everything you’ve ever known because you’re talented in ways no one around you is. He’s never really known what it’s like to have a home, but he’s never really been alone either. Willie’s father transferred to one of the patrol ships in the Malaren system when Willie started the academy there. It’s the system written as home on his papers. He had family there, cousins and vacation friends, he spoke the local language and knew the customs. He didn’t quite belong to that place, like David so clearly belongs to the Sudetes, but he wasn’t a stranger there either. It was like all the warships he’s lived on, familiar enough.

He thinks that’s probably where it starts, in this fascination with a way of life he’s never had. Maybe that’s giving him too much credit. Maybe David smiled at him on the first day and that’s all it took for Willie to fall for him, and it’s only now, in retrospect, that Willie is trying to distance himself from that. Willie done this too many times not to know how it goes. Step one: promise to keep in touch. Step two: write or call or message the first week, maybe the first two weeks. Step three: get busy. Step four: stop talking. It’s always the same. It sucks to add David to the list of best friends who floated away. It sucks a lot. 

He watches David’s meteoric rise to the bridge of Bruin from the bunk he shares in the lower decks of the Leaf with Kasperi. David’s wearing that same smile in every photograph. It’s a blessing and a curse. Willie still falls a little for that smile every time he sees it, but at least he can’t pretend it was special for him. He keeps waiting, expecting the messages to drop off as David took on more responsibilities. They don’t. There’s a new one almost everyday, silly pictures mostly and call soon? every few days. It’s like David doesn’t know how this is supposed to work. Willie answers the messages when they require answering and calls as much as he can. There are a few days he can’t, prolonged missions that put Willie on duty at odd hours, but eventually he’ll get back to a normal routine and find the time.

David is holding a baby when the holovid clears up. 

“I’m babysitting tonight,” David says by way of greeting. “Say hi to Willie.” He waves the baby’s hand and in a high pitched voice says “Ahoj, Willie.”

“Hi.” Willie waves.

“She only speaks Sudetes, we don’t teach her Legion yet.” David explains.

“She’ll pick it up soon enough.”

“Hopefully not too soon, she’s the only one on the ship with worse Legion then me.”

“Shut up, you speak great, I am the best teacher!” Willie says, falling into the familiar cadence of their conversations.

David tells stories about the crew of the Bruin, about any other ship they had contact with, gesticulating expressively with his or the baby’s hands and Willie watches him. He could watch David talk for hours. 

“So, the Bruin is still everything you thought it would be?” Willie asks as David’s stories start to wind down.

David laughs, “I am babysitting my childhood hero’s child, the only thing that would make this better was if you were here.”

“Yeah, I wish I was there too,” Willie says before they sign off.

The Leaf gets a new Captain. He’s actually been around for a few months but Willie doesn’t see him until his performance review. The man is tight lipped and serious. He tells Willie that his work is excellent, that he fulfills his responsibilities exceptionally, but his superiors report that he seems distracted, that though they can’t criticize his work, his seems to be coasting, not putting in the extra effort they want to see to give him the promotion to the bridge.

When he gets back to his room there’s a message from David, call tonight?

Last time they spoke Willie said he wished he had been assigned a different ship. He shouldn’t have. He’s been distracted by David, by thoughts of being on the Bruin, of being with David. It’s a mistake. It’s costing Willie his chances here. He wants a bridge assignment, it’s been his dream ever since he was a baby playing on the bridge of the Flame with his sister. He deserves the promotion. He’s good enough and he knows if he applies himself he can get it. He can’t afford to be distracted anymore.

He deletes the message.

David keeps sending messages for a while, but every time Willie doesn’t answer the length between messages stretches a little longer. Eventually Willie looks at his message board and it’s been a month, then two since David tried to contact him.

Willie works. He stays on duty longer than he’s supposed to, gets there early, leaves late. He does more during his shifts. He will make it to the bridge, he’ll prove his dedication to the League. The less he’s in his bunk the less he has to think about the missed calls from David.

Willie gets his first bridge rotation a week before they rendezvous with the Bruin for a routine mission distributing supplies to colonies in the Atlantic system. 

He gets to be with the crew planetside and David is there, with the crew from the Bruin. He doesn’t look as good, he isn’t smiling as much and he’s always busy with something, his eyes never so much as looking over. So, that’s it then. Willie always knew they would end up here, strangers who used to know each other. It took longer than he thought originally, but once you stop talking it’s so easy to let everything else go. Willie done this before, this time isn’t any worse, really.

David sits next to Willie with his checklist of supplies and who is supposed to be getting them. 

“Why did you stop talking to me?”

Willie has to hold back the hysterical laughter. He can’t escape David. He should have known. David isn’t like him. David’s home is solid and he when he builds things he builds them to last. Of course David doesn’t let things go without a fight, he never has. 

“I got busy.” Willie shrugs.

David nods, like that is an acceptable response. “I’ll make more time. Better times for you.”

“I don’t know, I mean I have to concentrate on work,” Willie hedges.

“If you don’t want to be friends just say so.” 

David has no idea how to play this game. No one says that. They just let the friendship die. That’s what is supposed to happen, that way no is responsible for it. It just happens. Willie doesn’t want to be responsible for it. He doesn’t want to be without David’s friendship. He just can’t do it anymore. He can’t spend his time wishing he was next to David, half his mind away from where he is, what he’s doing. 

“I don’t--” he starts and next to him David looks like he’s about to cry. “I love you,” Willie shrugs helplessly. “I love you and I can’t do the distance and time anymore. I can’t concentrate when I’m wondering if you’ll want to call today. I’m a better pilot when I’m not thinking about you.”

David is quiet for a moment. “Okay.”

That somehow hurts worse than thinking he David were just never going to talk again. David knowing how he feels and just letting him go hurts so much more. This is why Willie just lets people stop talking. He never has to know how they really felt about him.

“When I have leave I’ll come visit you, so we can be together, but I won’t call, I won’t distract you.”

“What?”

David leans over and kisses Willie’s cheek. “I loved you from first sight. I’m not letting you go.”

Willie threads his hands through David hair and pulls him in for another kiss.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Without You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13233405) by [frecklebombfic (frecklebomb)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frecklebomb/pseuds/frecklebombfic)




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